Can't get the faucet apart

The 21 year old bathroom sink is starting to leak. After taking off the
decorative faucet handle, I can only see a metal tab (what do you call
that?) to be used to loosen to take the faucet apart. When I tried to
turn CCW that with a small, then large crescent wrench, I applied so
much pressure that I was worried that something would break, but it
hasn't come loose yet.
Photos are here:

http://home.ionsky.com/~thadsmith/faucet1.jpg

http://home.ionsky.com/~thadsmith/faucet2.jpg
The top metal piece seems to be the only way to take it apart. You can
see in the photo that it started to warp from the high torque. Do I
keep cranking until something happens (and hope I don't bust something)?

For completeness, out of the spigot or at the base of the handle, or
somewhere else?

STop doing that.

Do you mean the gold colored piece or the silver one?

Have you tried to take off the gold cylinder, the one that is pretty
much the only piece showing in picture 2?
First use your hands.
If that doesn't work, the best tool for that is one of the flexible
rubber disks with loads of rows and columns of tiny bumps. You're
wife might have one. I don't know where you can buy them. I've only
seen them as giveaways, with advertising on them. And they dry out
after about 10 years, so it would be good to know where to buy only
one or two (I know where to buy 500.)
What else would be pretty good is a tool sold in plastic and rubber,
mostly in the last 5 years, that has long been sold in metal for
removing auto oil filters. It looks roughly like a P, and is arranged
so that if the base of the P is pushed in the right direction, the top
of the P grips what it is wrapped around. If it what it is wrapped
around is still a circle, it can take an awful lot of force and not
collapse. Your gold thing still looks like a circle to me, but I
can't see where you say it is "warped".
Anyhow the goal would be to rotate it back and forth until it is
loose, gradually pulling it up and off as you rotate it. Don't grip
it any tighter than you need to to rotate it.
Underneath you'll probably see a bigger nut than the one you are
working on, and that is the one that should be undone.
Box and end wrenches are better than crescent wrenches, but in this
case the crescent (adjustable) wrench is probalbly fine. It's all I
had when I started, and I think it is still what I use for faucets.
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let
me know if you have posted also.

Pond liner works well for things like this. You can find it at garden
centers which deal in backyard pond supplies, and it's sometimes sold by the
foot, from a big roll. It's much tougher than plain rubber, but can be cut
into convenient shapes with scissors. It's thick enough that you can wrap it
around something you don't want to scratch, but still use pliers or a pipe
wrench, and the tool's teeth won't cut through the material.

That was the key. The cylinder was pulled up with a little bit of
wiggling. The top nut fooled me, since I thought it was anchored solid,
but internally it slips over the valve stem. I am NOT a pro at this. ;-)
I see that it has a ceramic disk. I have never fiddled with those. I
suppose that's a testament to their reliability. Off to the hardware store!
Thanks for all the help, folks.

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